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Rating(4.7 / 5.0, 1796 votes)
5 | 87% (1561 votes) |
4 | 5% (98 votes) |
3 | 3% (61 votes) |
2 | 1% (23 votes) |
1 | 3% (53 votes) |
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Completely Translated
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Weekly Rank: #1295Monthly Rank: #665
All Time Rank: #616
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On 13432 Reading Lists
Monthly Rank: #1659
All Time Rank: #117
Description
Links are NOT allowed. Format your description nicely so people can easily read them. Please use proper spacing and paragraphs.With the rising tide of steam power and machinery, who can come close to being a Beyonder? Shrouded in the fog of history and darkness, who or what is the lurking evil that murmurs into our ears?
Waking up to be faced with a string of mysteries, Zhou Mingrui finds himself reincarnated as Klein Moretti in an alternate Victorian-era world where he sees a world filled with machinery, cannons, dreadnoughts, airships, different machines, as well as Potions, Divination, Hexes, Tarot Cards, Sealed Artifacts…
The Light continues to shine but mystery has never gone far. Follow Klein as he finds himself entangled with the Churches of the world—both orthodox and unorthodox—while he slowly develops newfound powers thanks to the Beyonder potions.
Like the corresponding tarot card, The Fool, which is numbered 0—a number of unlimited potential—this is the legend of “The Fool”.
Associated Names
One entry per lineLord of Mysteries
LotM
Penguasa Misteri
Senhor dos Mistérios
Señor de los Misterios
لورد الغوامض
ราชันเร้นลับ
ราชันโลกพิศวง
序列的戰爭 (old)
詭秘の主
诡秘之主 (new)
신비의 제왕
Related Series
Circle of Inevitability (Sequel)Recommendations
Deep Sea Embers (13)My House of Horrors (13)
Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint (7)
Throne of Magical Arcana (6)
Release that Witch (6)
Warlock of the Magus World (5)
Recommendation Lists
- Excellent Male Protagonists Novel
- Light...
- Quality Writing
- not rofan
- To Read - Fully Translated - F/M - Not Romance foc...
Latest Release
Date | Group | Release |
---|---|---|
02/06/19 | Webnovel | c99 |
02/05/19 | Webnovel | c98 |
02/04/19 | Webnovel | c97 |
02/04/19 | Webnovel | c96 |
02/03/19 | Webnovel | c95 |
02/03/19 | Webnovel | c94 |
02/02/19 | Webnovel | c93 |
02/02/19 | Webnovel | c92 |
02/01/19 | Webnovel | c91 |
02/01/19 | Webnovel | c90 |
02/01/19 | Webnovel | c89 |
02/01/19 | Webnovel | c88 |
01/31/19 | Webnovel | c87 |
01/31/19 | Webnovel | c86 |
01/30/19 | Webnovel | c85 |
Concept of mystery is ok. But world building and plot development / structure is painful. Poorly disguised filler in the form of ridiculous expository and realism writing. Long chapters 2000+ words, tons of unnecessary lore, plot devices, characters. Translation can be iffy at times.
Just because it's complicated doesn't mean it's cool.
Not sure why it's rated so highly, but I can respect what the author was trying to create. PREMISE
An average Chinese Joe gets isekai'd to a 19th century steampunk / paranormal world through the accidental use of a magic ritual. He's immediately knee-deep into a mu*der mystery and caught up in political/factional machinations. MC figuratively becomes Geralt of Rivia /Jack Ryan. COMMENTS
(1) A genuinely interesting mystery novel... but too-much-too-soon all the time
The initial mu*der mystery when MC isekai'd was a clever plot device, especially since it was enacted against the MC himself. It led to the logical introduction of paranormal powers (despite the steampunk era). But before we can take a breather and figure things out, MC suddenly encounters ANOTHER mystery through his reuse of the SAME magic ritual when trying to go back to his homeworld. He enacts powers of a Grey Fog (OP dimensional realm), accidentally connects to two strangers, which eventually forms the Tarot Club.
These strangers are given paragraphs of backstories, and 10-15 different named characters associated with them (everything from scullery maids to random crew members) are thrown at us. Then MC joins a special-ops team (Nighthawks) that investigates paranormal incidents while protecting their own church believers. All this in just the first 30 chapters. HUH? Maybe just kick the Grey Fog mystery till later? The first 30+ chapters had NOTHING to do with the side characters. It was literally character introductions to tell readers that they exist. What's the point of fronting multiple mysteries / scenarios at once when it's so easy to connect side characters later when it's more logical? Also maybe just lay off on the use of naming characters? Bestowing a name assigns a degree of importance. Too many, esp on random people, makes it unnecessarily distracting. Imagine every NPC and monster in an RPG having a name! Holy cow! This kind of distracting development happens throughout the novel. You can see that author's ideas are all over the place. Before we figure out how deep the 1st rabbit hole is, we reach a junction with 10 different rabbit holes. That's not mystery writing, that's just sheer nonsense. Several reviewers have claimed that the first dozen chapters are ALL NECESSARY FILLER, which is absurd. The need for character introduction doesn't excuse poor structure and development. Take a page from "Overlord". Whole chapters are written about side characters and their adventures, and they eventually link up with the MC Ainz in a logical, appropriate timeline.
Author doesn't understand pacing and the basic concept of "Do readers really need to know this NOW?".
(2) Filler filler filler
You know how horror movies have the camera pan away or pauses, and you're expecting a monster to pop up, but nothing happens? This novel has it in spades, to the point that it's just distracting and ruins the mood. Here's just a few examples.
-- Unstable bread prices, economic and political turmoil that are repeatedly mentioned. You would expect that to become an issue later or be part of a bigger plot, but it never does.
-- Captain Dunn is listed as a forgetful man. There are paragraphs of him repeating himself or dragging out conversations as if that's of plot significance, but has no bearing on the plot.
-- Long descriptions of currency. Who the kings embellished on the notes were, blah blah blah. No bearing on the plot.
-- Half a chapter (think it was Ch 20-21) with MC and his sister squabbling about money, and randomly mentioning named friends who squandered money, the pros and cons of spending/saving money, etc. No bearing on plot.
-- It was randomly mentioned that since MC has a job and money, they can move out of their sh*tty apartment. So now they have to break their 1 yr lease (which we just found out). So now his brother has to go visit the landlord to renegotiate. You'd think such hyper detail would have significance. But it doesn't.
-- There's excessively LONG exposition about skill Pathways (basically RPG promotion trees) as a Beyonder, some Sequences/branches are incomplete, and the dangers/side effects of pursuing them.
Then, MC just picks the "Seer" branch, because of plot armor guidance from his predecessor isekai-er.
-- Even a random advertis**ent seen in a newspaper has a named character "Mr Gusev". And never mentioned again. This happens throughout the novel. WTF?
-- An entire chapter devoted to MC's brother complaining about the hypocrisy of certain affordable housing projects and the strings attached. Some reviewers actually said author had a good grasp of Victorian England! Are you kidding me?! There were no "affordable housing projects" in Victorian England, social classes were strongly held. This is just a thinly concealed way for the author to write filler and make allegories about Chinese housing affordability, or complain that "education" is not the solution to poverty.
-- NU IS A DIRECTORY OF ASIAN TRANSLATED NOVELS. All reviews on NU are based on translated novels, not their raws. It doesn't matter how amazing the raw version is. You have to take both the novel and its translation into account.
-- I'll partially defend the translator. While the translation quality admittedly isn't great, there are little/no liberties taken with punctuations, sentence structures, etc. A simple example.
Ch 36: 奥黛丽边回想父亲和哥哥讨论局势时的话语,边自行发挥道:"他们认为现在政府的结构太过混乱,每次选举完毕,只要出现党派的更替,都会从上到下换一批人,让事情变得一团糟,效率极其低下,这不仅造成了战争的失利,还给民众们带来了极大不便。"
克莱恩很清楚,因为没有参照对象,此时的鲁恩王国还没有进化出公务员考试制度,政党执政形式依旧处于初级阶段,所以,在选举胜利后,不少所谓的事务性位置也会奖励给成员和支持者。
While Audrey recalled the conversation between her father and elder brother about the situation, she put in her own words, "They believe that the government's structure is too chaotic. Every election, if there is a change of the ruling party, there will be a change of personnel from top to bottom. It makes things a mess and lowers efficiency tremendously. Not only does it cause the battle loss, it also brings great inconvenience to the civilians."
Klein knew very well that as there was no example to reference, the Loen Kingdom had yet to evolve into a system that examined public servants. The political situation was still in its preliminary stages; therefore, after every election victory, many so-called positions would be awarded to members and supporters.
Could translation have less words / more appropriate words?
Yes.
Is this faithfully translated with the author's original sentence structure, punctuations, etc?
Almost. The translator actually made it better by breaking up entire long expositions into proper sentences.
Is there filler?
Yes. The first paragraph is Audrey recalling a conversation and talking. Why describe it as a "self narration / put in her own words"?
The second paragraph is the MC mulling over on Audrey's comments.
How does MC "know very well that there is no example to reference"?
Why do you even need a "reference" to form a better system of government?
Why does the reference use China's regulation that requires civil servants to be frequently re-examed (think of it as continuing education to update/keep your license) ? Almost all forms of modern govt/public entities keep base civil servants in place, with annual reviews to weed out underperforming people.
The whole point of MC's paragraph is just to conclude that the system of govt is immature and inefficient! What do all of MC's nonsensical examples have anything to do with Audrey's statement?? It's just pointless words/lore (from China) being thrown in.
And the worst part is that a few paragraphs later, he regurgitates what he just thought of, except this time he "says" it out loud. HOW IS THAT NOT FILLER?
There's nothing wrong with throwing in Chinese lexicon since the target audience is for China, but it has to make sense and not be irrelevant! Sure a reader from China could instantly grasp the meaning, easily gloss over it, but how are regular readers supposed to do that?
I get the sense a lot of reviewers have read the Chinese raws and can easily gloss over the problems, but it's precisely because it was translated into English that all of the problematic content and sentence structures start becoming obvious. (3) Pointlessly complicated world building / more filler
It's one thing to have filler, it's another thing to try to disguise it with lousy Dickensian-style. Author tried to hid filler under nonsensical verbosity, lore and hyper realism.
Lore/backstory isn't meant to be storytelling. It's to provide info that will entertain and enlighten a reader. It's meant to connect the dots. There's something very wrong when the first 30 chapters has an info-dump on things that hardly matter. If you want to know how pointlessly complex it gets, google the Lord of the Mysteries wiki page.
Descriptive realism is just meant to convey the mood and atmosphere to readers. It's utter s*upidity when it gets verbose.
Ch 10: The incumbent Prime Minister, Lord Aguesid Negan, went up to the front. He was a member of the Conservative Party and the second non-aristocrat to become the Prime Minister till this very day. He was given the title of a Lord for his great contributions..... The main supporter of the Conservative Party was the present Duke of Negan, Pallas Negan, who was the brother of Aguesid!
Why would you bother introducing a Duke of Negan (never mentioned before) ? Why does it matter that he's the second non-aristocrat? Who gives a sh*t at this point in the story? That's how all characters are introduced. Comes with their friends, family, dog, servant, father's-mother's-friend's-wife's-niece's-uncle's-nextdoor neighbor's childhood friend.
Ch 10: "Ladies and Gentlemen, I believe you have witnessed this history-making ironclad warship. It has dimensions of 101 by 21 meters. It has an amazing port and starboard design. The armor belt is 457 millimeters thick. The displacement is 10060 tonnes. There are four 305 millimeter main cannons, six rapid fire cannons, 12 six pound cannons, 18 six barrel machine guns, and four torpedo launchers. It can reach a speed of 16 knot!....
Building out ironclad warship required three big coal and steel amalgamators, a scale of more than twenty steel factories, 60 scientists and senior engineers from the Backlund Cannon Academy and Pritze Nautical Academy, two royal shipyards, almost hundred factories for spare parts, an Admiralty, a ship-building committee, a Cabinet, a determined king with excellent foresight, a great country with an annual steel production of 12 million tonnes!"
I don't even know where to begin on how ridiculous this nonsense is....
Ch 14: Welch's place in Tingen was a detached house with a garden. The road outside the hollowed metal gates allowed four carriages to pass through at once. Street lamps lined the sides of the road every fifty meters. They looked different from the ones Klein had seen in his previous life. They were gas lamps and the heights of every lamp was about that of an adult male so that it was convenient to light the lamps. The black metal was closely oppressed to the glass, forming a checkered pattern, casting out classical paper lantern-like 'artworks'. Coldness and warmth were intertwined while darkness and light coexisted.
Walking along the pathway blanketed by rays from the sunset, Klein and Dunn Smith entered Welch's rented place through the ajar metal gate.
In case it's not obvious, those are just wrought iron gates. I don't know why lantern gas lamps at the height of an adult male are supposedly that unique. They do exist on Earth. Does Welch's place need to be mentioned twice? Or was there confusion earlier when only 1 damn building was mentioned? Does it matter whether it's ajar?
The whole point is just to convey a foreboding atmosphere. What's with all this nonsense?
Ch 18: "First, mental death... Second, their personality will be changed... Third. Well..." Dunn put down his pipe and picked up a porcelain cup and took a sip.
"Fermo coffee from the Paz River Valley is bitter... do you want one?"
"I prefer coffee from the Feynapotter plateau... what's the third outcome?"
-- conversation between MC and secret agent Captain Dunn's when discussing possible side effects of Beyonders who awakened.
It's pretty obvious there's no purpose to the random discussion of coffee, doesn't affect the atmosphere or lead the conversation in a different direction. Just nonsense filler. Even if this info about coffee was somehow useful hundreds of chapters later, what's the point of mentioning it NOW?
This isn't just adopting archaic speech/lexicon, it's annoying name dropping and quotes of fictional gods/beliefs/philosophies that nobody knows about. And you just KNOW it's the author trying to slip in word count. Nothing beats an example.
Ch 15: "... Second, you're a graduate of the history department from Khoy University, this is something we urgently need. Although a believer of the Lord of the Storms, Leumi, perceives women in a way that is loathsome, his views regarding society, humanities, economics and politics remain incisive. He said before that talents are key to maintaining a competitive advantage and positive development, a point that I very much agree with." --- spoken by Captain Dunn, an investigative agent, to the MC.
Are you f***ing kidding me? Here's EVERYTHING that's wrong is just one short paragraph.
(1) Dunn was NOT being sarcastic.
(2) Dunn is NOT a follower of the Church of Storms (he's with the Church of Evernight). Dunn made ONE off-hand comment in the previous chapter that they would not employ torturous techniques when interrogating MC, unlike the Church of Storms (under the assumption that MC / readers know what the hell he is talking about). No further discussion.
(3) The MC is also NOT a follower of the Church of Storms or any organization and everyone know that.
So why the hell would ANYBODY start discussing philosophies about an entity that isn't related to the situation?
(4) If author just wanted to introduce readers to the characteristics of Church of Storms followers (which is clearly what he is doing) , then DO IT IN A LOGICAL APPROPRIATE MANNER. Have the MC visit the various churches, or meet various believers and let a short exposition or natural dialogue happen. Instead we're constantly treated to random insertions in random conversations, and readers are expected to join all the pieces together to understand the world. That's NOT IMMERSION. That's pointless complication to add word count.
Go read any of the classic Dickensian novels (Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities) or Lord of the Rings and see the difference.
It's as if you were having a conversation with someone and then started randomly quoting maxims from Kant out of the blue. We've seen that happen in other novels and it's PAINFUL.
Again, this nonsense exists throughout the novel.
-- MC's powers make no sense. He supposedly stockpiles over 40+ skills by Vol 5 (FYI that c105 is still just halfway through Vol 1....)
Author frequently has to pile on layer after layer of explanations (retcon) to cover it up.
First involves MC using a ritualistic circle (to isekai). Then using the same ritualistic circle to summon the Grey Fog and create a virtual communication platform (no longer isekai). Then because the ritualistic circle is obviously too clunky for MC to use in the novel, author decides to have it magically etched onto his hand. No explanation how that happened. So his superpower only does everything.
MC realizes his life MIGHT still be threatened after escaping death the first time. DESPITE the fact that joining the Nighthawks as a regular civilian offers MC some measure of protection, MC still wants to become a Beyonder (gain random special powers through consumption of magic potions, basically "The Witcher" or the Grey Wardens in DragonAge). Even though he is repeatedly told a significant portion (20+%) of Beyonders go berserk once awakened.
HUH?? So he's taking on MORE risk to avoid the LOW possibility of assassination? Where's the logic in this?
And so author pulls out the magical card called "MC just discovered the original emperor with super Beyonder powers was also an isekai'er, from CHINA! So his ridiculous decision making earlier is negated! MC just needs to follow emperor's footsteps and have MORE reason to become a Beyonder!".
MC then justifies to his family that he'll be rich with just his secret agent job.
Afterwards (in about... 3 chapters?), MC starts complaining that his single secret agent job salary actually isn't all that much.
I won't even bother hiding this as a spoiler, it's just that s*upid. -- Plot development (at least the first arc/vol) comes in the form of 3 strangers (including MC) sitting together in a virtual environment (Grey Fog) after MC called on them by accident. Literally, sitting around exchanging ideas and chatting about what's going on in their part of the world. Too much to write, I'm giving up. Am tired of constantly having to refer back to the novel to point out problems. Feels like I'm reading SAO all over again.
- Solid history
- Good range of culture
- Unique power system
- Clear social division
Characters: 10/10... more>>